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Shuhei Yoshida on Vita profitability, development budgets, Wii U & more

Averon

Member
It isn't unbelievable that Sony is breaking even or even making a slight loss/profit on the hardware. The Vita's components aren't some semi-proprietary tech that took building new fab plants and years of R&D (see PS3). If you believe Sony, the Vita's R&D started in earnest only in 2008 and they already had, like, 95% final hardware in early 2011. And I'm sure Sony is likely getting some discounts from parts suppliers.
 
Even if they make a slight loss on hardware in the US, the UK and EU pricing will eliminate that.

I hope we see a lot more fully fleshed out original games from 3rd parties that are excellent portable games. Capcom found a goldmine with Monster Hunter. Surely there has to be a publisher out there looking for a Western equivalent.
 

apana

Member
No one can say the price is unfair if Sony is just breaking even (or small profit or loss) on the product. However $250 is still expensive for most people. I think all handhelds should end up being in the $150-$200 range a year after launch.
 
Jeels said:
Even moreso considering there was barely anyone expecting $250. The lowest most people were going was $300 and even they were getting called out for being too liberal on their estimates. For what you are getting, the Vita is priced not just fairly, but with the consumer in mind. It makes its competition look silly in comparison.
Speaking the truth here.
 
I think the Vita is a great value when you look at something like a touch ipod that people gladly shell out $250 for. This can do everything that can do and more.
 

Shiloa

Member
I don't see why it's crazy to think they are breaking even on the hardware. $250 is a lot of money to make a product like that. Chances are Yoshida was directly speaking about the hardware, and that Hirai was talking about the operation as a whole, perhaps including the R&D, to make the whole Vita venture a profitable operation.
 

/XX/

Member
To give a little more information on the subject from my previous post, the media company Nihon Keizai Shimbun (日本経済新聞), or Nikkei Inc., reported (days after MoCell's own report I referenced previously) the information of SAMSUNG Mobile Devices (SMD) producing the OLED screen panels to be assembled on the PSVITA system, and various news outlets ran with it, but since then, the Nikkei Inc. website seems to have moved or deleted the original article, only to be found now on a cached version made by Google Web Search:

韓国・サムスン、有機EL・増産ラインを2カ月前倒し稼働  :日本経済新聞 said:
外販も拡大し、ソニーが今年末に発売する「プレイステーション・ポータブル(PSP)」の後継機「NGP(仮称)」にも採用されるもようだ。サムスンは将来、薄型テレビへの搭載を目指している。
http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...cd=4&hl=es&ct=clnk&gl=es&source=www.google.es

Apparently, and something that Nikkei Inc. doesn't mention in the report but other news outlet like Mainichi Shimbun's (毎日新聞) news website '毎日jp' does (http://mainichi.jp/life/money/kabu/nsj/news/20110601258435.html), is that the source of the information about SMD upcoming OLED panels production schedule is a representative of Hodogaya Chemical Co., Ltd. (保土谷化学工業), provider of fundamental organic compounds in the production of the emissive electroluminescent layer for various OLED panel manufacturers.
 

Lazy8s

The ghost of Dreamcast past
Transitioning from a university research project to a business, gathering venture capital across multiple rounds of funding, DMP may have been targeting a console design win, but they've got business outside of Nintendo and definitely weren't some expensive custom job for the 3DS.

As for Sony's costs, this has all been covered again and again before:
"Using a graphics architecture which employs SRAM for tile buffers instead of eDRAM and also minimizes costly memory access patterns, reducing the need for exotic bandwidth/bus solutions, gives Vita's design fabrication friendliness, reliability for yields, and dependability for production scheduling and for hitting its power targets, all of which lead to lower costs for Sony.

Of course Vita was going to be affordable. Of course it wasn't going to be behind schedule for release. Of course the battery life was going to be respectable."
 

chubigans

y'all should be ashamed
Hah, I really like following Yoshida on Twitter.

have been drinking beer at this sports bar for the last 15 years or so. They used to have free peanuts, but no more, which is sad.

Aw. :(
 
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